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A Pack Rat in Cyberspace
Stuart
Brown
StudentAffairs.com
Posted November 6,
2001 Student
Affairs Online, 2 (Fall)
I'm a pack rat. I freely admit it. My attic is chock full of
memories from years past. File drawers are crammed with mementos and
documents that serve no earthly purpose. My collection of Broadway
show programs (Playbills) spans over 30 years. And don't forget my
National Lampoon magazines from the early 1970's (when they
were humorous).
This penchant for saving has, unfortunately, spilled over to my
method for handling the myriad number of e-mails I receive each day.
Simply put, I am loathe to delete and too lazy to properly file these
electronic correspondence in any logical fashion.
This admission would probably surprise friends and colleagues who
think of me as some sort of technophile; who know me as a person
accessing his e-mail morning, noon, and night; whose hands begin
trembling from withdrawal symptoms after two days absent from the
keyboard's touch. Yet this proclivity for cyber messages doesn't
necessarily translate into an orderly disposition on my part. Why?
Three reasons. First, through no fault of my own, is the general
explosion of e-mail usage in today's society. The sheer magnitude can
overwhelm even the most anal-retentive soul. Every time I turn around
there are dozens of e-mails in each of my multiple accounts. With the
increased volume of electronic correspondence how could any sane
individual keep up? Delete? Retain? File? Agonizing decisions.
Secondly, hard drive space has expanded exponentially. We don't use
the term "megabyte" anymore to measure the size of an internal hard
drive. Now, it's how many "gigabytes." So much space fosters a "devil
may care" attitude on saving e-mails.
The third reason cannot be blamed on outside forces. As a
prize-winning procrastinator I invariably put off today, saving for
tomorrow. A sobering example materialized a few months ago. I had
signed up for an electronic collection system for the utility bill.
Alerted by a monthly e-mail, payment was a snap. Or should have been.
The problem occurred when I continued, month after month, to gloss
over the billing announcements routed to my inbox. "I'll get to it
later" was my mantra. It wasn't until the shutoff notice arrived--via
U.S. mail--that I realized my inattention had spanned four
consecutive months.
Unusual? Perhaps. But isn't it human nature to relegate boring,
nonessential tasks to the bottom of the heap? How many of us jump at
the opportunity to balance the checkbook? Mow the lawn? Tidy up the
garage? Somehow organizing one's e-mail falls in-between cleaning out
the fishtank and defrosting the freezer. A more academic view is
taken by Ned Kock, of the Fox School of Business and Management at
Temple University. In a July 2001 New York Times article, he states
"there is an excitement to reading and replying [to e-mail],
but filing takes cognitive effort without an immediate reward."
Deferred rewards are anathema to our existence. We like things now,
at once, this instant. Microwaveable dinners. Drive thru eateries.
Hitting the send button or opening a virus-free attachment is instant
gratification.
In one sense, my organizational behavior is replicating, in an
electronic configuration, those piles of "stuff" off to the side of
my desk waiting to be processed. These accumulations, as with the
shelved e-mails, grow faster than mushrooms after a spring rain. But
the make-up of both are remarkably similar--announcements to upcoming
events, job postings from some faraway outpost, phone numbers and
addresses waiting to be catalogued, position papers and articles
asking for input...The list drones on and on.
The cure for my idiosyncratic disposition? An antidote to my woes?
Short of undergoing endless hours of therapy, harking back to the
"old days" (think MacPlus) might be the simplest of answers. Then,
electronic mail, for most of us, was an alien concept. Canceling all
my e-mail accounts would instantly solve my dilemma. No filing
concerns or deletion decisions. I may even begin to write actual
letters again, call long forgotten friends, schedule more
face-to-face appointments... On the other hand, maybe life isn't so
bad after all.
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